Italy backs sanctions against Iran, Russia opposed

New Italian FM supports US sanctions on Tehran's financial systems with "full conviction"; Russia calls them "contradictory to international law"; Iran says sanctions futile.

By REUTERS, REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Italy Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi 311 (photo credit: Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi [File].)
Italy Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi 311
(photo credit: Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi [File].)
Italy offered its full backing to the economic sanctions against Iran announced by the US government, new Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said on Tuesday, adding to international pressure against Tehran's nuclear program.
"Italy supports with full conviction the plan for economic sanctions announced by the US administration," a statement from the Foreign Ministry read. The statement followed a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency which presented evidence suggesting that Iran had worked on designing an atomic bomb.
RELATED:Iran minister says sanctions a 'lose-lose game' 'US, UK, to announce new sanctions on Iran' Russia's Foreign Ministry denounced the sanctions as "unacceptable and contradictory to international law," Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday.
The United States, worried by Tehran's nuclear program, named Iran on Monday as an area of "primary money laundering concern" in a step designed to dissuade non-US banks from dealing with it.
It also blacklisted 11 entities suspected of aiding its nuclear programs and expanded sanctions to target companies that aid its oil and petrochemical industries.
Iran dismissed new sanctions as more a propaganda exercise than something that will hit the economy.
"Such measures are condemned by our people and will have no impact and be in vain," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told a news conference Tuesday.
US President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States had identified "the entire Iranian banking sector - including the Central Bank of Iran - as a threat to governments or financial institutions that do business with Iranian banks."
Obama said Washington would continue to look for ways to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program.
"As long as Iran continues down this dangerous path, the United States will continue to find ways, both in concert with our partners and through our own actions to isolate and increase the pressure upon the Iranian regime," he said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner made an official announcement on Monday afternoon detailing the series of new sanctions against Tehran, focusing on Iran’s money-raising activities.
Geithner declared the Central Bank of Iran to be a “primary money laundering concern,” a step short of official sanctions that would require the United States to cut off access to any foreign institution that does business with the bank. That more drastic step would have presented serious problems for US business if states such as China and Russia fail, as they are expected, to cut off ties with Tehran. The new category would simply warn off foreign governments and companies from dealing with Iranian institutions.
Clinton phoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday evening to brief him on the sanctions the US decided to level against Iran.
Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threat
Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threat
The United Kingdom started off the trans-Atlantic sanctions announcements earlier Monday when the British government announced their decision to terminate all dealings with the Central Bank of Iran, a decision that covers all Iranian banks, branches and subsidiaries.
“This measure will protect the UK financial sector from being unknowingly used by Iranian banks for proliferation related transactions,” said George Osborne, Britain’s treasury chief.
Iran’s nuclear activities “pose a significant risk to the national interests of the UK and countries across the region.”
Since the November 8 publication of the IAEA’s report on Iran, the US has been pushing for international cooperation in policing Tehran’s nuclear production initiatives. Last week’s meeting of the nuclear watchdog organization’s board of governors yielded a statement calling on Iran to open itself to inspectors, but stopped short of major international steps against Tehran’s march toward nuclear armament.
Iranian representatives were conspicuously absent from a two-day meeting in Vienna held to discuss nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East. In the shadow of the recent report slamming Iran’s nuclear aspirations, the IAEA hosted representatives of a number of Middle Eastern states, including Israel, for a discussion on creating a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the area.
There are already nuclearweapon- free zones in South America, Africa, the south Pacific and parts of Asia.
In addition to the nuclear faceoff and the terror plot targeting the Saudi ambassador to Washington, it looked Monday that there was yet another factor in Washington’s growing tensions with Iran.
The Washington Post revealed Monday that Iran was suspected of having provided former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi with hundreds of artillery shells filled with “highly toxic mustard agent.” These shells, discovered in recent sweeps of Libya by anti-Gaddafi forces, were beyond the purview of the minimal amounts of chemical agents that the US knew that Gaddafi held.
The Washington Post article quoted a senior US official as saying that the US “was pretty sure” that the shells were custom- designed and produced in Iran for Libya.
Washington is also concerned that more than a dozen undercover agents working for the CIA who were caught in both Iran and Lebanon will be or already have been executed, ABC News quoted US officials as saying on Monday.
According to the report, the agents were paid informants, hired by the CIA to spy on Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Many risks lead to wins, but some result in occasional setbacks,” ABC quoted an official as saying. The arrests occurred over the past six months, he added.
The officials gave credit to Iran and Hezbollah for uncovering the two espionage rings, but say sloppy CIA “tradecraft” was also partly to blame for the discovery of the networks.
“We were lazy and the CIA is now flying blind against Hezbollah,” a former official was quoted as saying.
Herb Keinon and Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.